JUNE
Oh June! thou comest once again
With bales of hay and sheaves of grain,
That make the farmer’s heart rejoice,
And anxious herds lift up their voice.
I hear thy promise, sunny maid,
Sound in the reapers’ ringing blade,
And in the laden harvest wain,
That rumbles through the stubble plain.
Ye tell a tale of bearded stacks,
Of busy mills and floury sacks;
Of cars oppressed with cumbrous loads,
Hard curving down their iron roads;
Of barges grounding on their way
Down winding streams to reach the bay;
Of vessels spreading to the breeze
Their snowy sails in stormy seas,
While bearing to some foreign strand
The products of this golden land.
Ye come again with cereal brows,
And crescent blade, to fill the mows;
And never fall thy feet too soon,
Oh, ever welcome, sunny June.
Once more I see your banner spread
Across the evening sky,
I see your trace in shallow brooks
That feebly ripple by.
I see your face in mirror-lakes,
In fields and forests old,
And in the gardens all arrayed
In crimson, blue and gold.
I hear your voice in twittering birds,
That round the gables wheel,
And in the humming monologues
Which from the meadows steal.
Oh, month of Love and plighted faith,
And airy castles high!
I hear you in the lover’s song
And in the maiden’s sigh.
And in the breeze that gently wakes
The leaves upon the bough,
I feel your soothing mother-touch
Caressing cheek and brow.
Oh, sweet as sunrise to the lark,
As noonday to the bee,
Or evening to the nightingale,
Is June’s return to me.